


this is what you get; it's the way i am

by el_em_en_oh_pee



Series: tumblr "drabbles" [15]
Category: One Direction (Band), Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: F/M, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 12:54:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7533550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/el_em_en_oh_pee/pseuds/el_em_en_oh_pee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taylor is a consummate professional. She’s successfully apprehended her past sixteen marks, easy as one, two, three. Her M.O. is all the talk of enemy agencies - broken men with their mountainous power structures crumbling before their eyes huddle in uncomfortable plastic chairs, their secrets clutched in her perfectly-manicured hands and handed off to The Woman Upstairs for final processing, a dark red lipstick smudge on their upper left cheeks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is what you get; it's the way i am

**Author's Note:**

> following a conversation about harry and taylor as rival spies and the subsequent ask: "Would it be like, Taylor gets Harry as an assigned target so she puts on her tightest black dress and reddest lipstick and flirts with him all night (all while trying not to make fun of his scarves or farmer hat), and she's just about to invite him back to hers for a little in flagrante delicto (re: she has a handgun strapped to her thigh) when she blacks out. That fucking ring, she thinks the next morning, waking up tied to a headboard in an empty hotel room. She didn't check that fucking ring."
> 
> and my response, "it would be EXACTLY like that except harry would be flirting right back (also i have problems w blackout drugs implications) so it would be a little bit more like -"
> 
> (crossposted from tumblr)

Taylor is a consummate professional. She’s successfully apprehended her past sixteen marks, easy as one, two, three. Her M.O. is all the talk of enemy agencies - broken men with their mountainous power structures crumbling before their eyes huddle in uncomfortable plastic chairs, their secrets clutched in her perfectly-manicured hands and handed off to The Woman Upstairs for final processing, a dark red lipstick smudge on their upper left cheeks.

That is, unless they were classified as super-extra dangerous targets to be taken out, or they got a little too forward with her. Then the kiss-print was on their lips, and their bodies crumbled with their pride.

Taylor’s professionalism is her greatest calling card, greater than the lip-prints and the scratch of the poisoned tip of her nails. Which is why, when she’s sitting at the bar in Podgorica, swirling her gin gimlet in her glass (light on the gin, of course, just enough for the smell to carry; she’s on a job), waiting for her informant to arrive, she’s a little disgruntled with herself when she catches herself looking over to the man in the corner more than is strictly necessary for a routine scan of the area.

She’s even more disgruntled when he catches her looking and grins, tipping his hat at her. 

Taylor nods back, and he takes that as an invitation, moving three seats over and taking the one next to her. “Hi,” he says. “I’m Harry.”

She categorizes her observations about him as analytically as she can: He’s British. Long brown hair that wants to be in curls but which has fallen victim to gravity and the extreme summer heat. Green eyes. Lanky - not tall, not compared to Taylor, but definitely not short. Completely gorgeous. Absolutely not her informant, who is a woman named Barbara and a friend to Taylor’s agency. “Taylor,” she says, extending her hand.

She can’t tell whether he’s had training in how to give a convincing, appropriate handshake with just the right amount of pressure and squeeze to suggest interest, like she has, or whether he’s just that good. Which probably means he’s had training; no one’s that good.

Almost no one, at least, but she’s met very few naturals. Not in her line of work.

“What brings an American to Montenegro?” he asks, signalling to the bartender to bring Taylor another drink. She raises her eyebrow at the bartender, who inclines her head - Taylor won’t be served any more alcohol this time around. Amazing what a fifty-euro note can do for a girl. 

“What brings anyone to Montenegro?” Taylor asks. She can play this game, at least till Barbara shows up, so she tosses her hair back and sits up straighter. Her hair is its natural blonde for this job, cut shorter than usual. She has a sunhat, but doesn’t like wearing it inside. 

“Ah,” says Harry. “On assignment from Cosa Nostra, then.”

“Yes,” Taylor agrees. “Because Sicilian crime syndicates are known for their activities in this part of the Balkans.”

Harry snaps his fingers. “I knew it,” he says, triumphantly. Their drinks arrive - Harry’s is a Manhattan, but a tiny wrinkle appears between his eyebrows when he takes a sip, which means he’s drinking it to impress her. If he were a target, Taylor could nab him so easily. “But really.”

“Is the beauty of the area not justification enough?” Taylor asks, waving the hand not curled around her glass expansively. 

“Not for a single woman,” Harry says, looking her over critically. “Unless -”

“Clever digging,” Taylor says. She’s so much better at getting information from people. “I don’t have any partners with me.” Selena is in Albania following a lead, but then again, Selena’s not the type of partner Harry means, anyway. “Just a friend I’m meeting here.”

“Then I shan’t keep you,” says Harry. He thumbs over an honestly ostentatious and unfashionably bulky ring on his finger. Taylor’s eyes catch on it. It’s hideous, but it suits his hand. Kind of like Milady’s ring in the Three Musketeers - and normally Taylor wouldn’t think twice of it, but Harry had too impressive of a handshake to ignore the ring now that she’s noticed it.

“Stay,” she says, careful not to be too quick about it. “She hasn’t shown up yet. You haven’t told me why you’re here!”

“I’m a spy,” Harry says, in a way that’s clearly meant to make Taylor laugh. So she does, dutifully, tossing her head back enough to show off the line of her throat and the way her lips glisten red in the dim light of the bar, her short hair brushing against her back. It’s her attractive laugh. She’s intrigued. She wants to real him in and find out his secrets, especially since there’s the heavy note of honesty under his jovial tone. “I’m here to catch a bad guy.”

“How cinematic of you,” Taylor says. She bites her lip and looks up at him through her lashes. “How bad?”

“Very, very bad,” says Harry. “Bad guys. Have you heard of Louis and Eleanor?”

Taylor freezes, and then works very hard to look as if she never tensed up at all. Louis Tomlinson and Eleanor Calder are her and Selena’s marks, too. Harry may know who Taylor is, and since he’s British, there definitely is no way they’re working together on this one. “You mean the European Bonnie and Clyde? I thought they were a myth! More hype than threat, at least.”

Harry grins at her and thumbs over his ring again. Taylor tries to examine it without looking too closely at it. “It’s very dangerous work,” he says. “I could die.”

He must be a rotten awful spy, then. “It sounds very frightening,” Taylor agrees, licking her lips slowly. She debates putting a hand on his thigh and then goes for it. If he’s laying it on this thick, this quickly, she might as well, too.

“It would be so sad,” says Harry. “If I went off to apprehend them and ended up dead with my last thoughts being, why didn’t I try to sleep with that beautiful American woman from the bar?”

Inwardly, Taylor rolls her eyes. “Sad indeed,” she says, irony coloring her voice. “Excuse me while I powder my nose?”

“By all means,” says Harry, and Taylor goes off to the ladies, where she texts Barbara’s throw-away cell phone number with would you like to go sailing on Saturday? which is code for, ‘location compromised; fall back on plan B.’ She’ll meet Barbara for doughnuts after dinner. 

Before she leaves the bathroom, she checks that her hidden handgun and knives are all in place, and then applies a thick coat of her bright red lipstick - bright, because it’s not concentrated enough to cause long-term damage. Like death; death is a form of long-term damage that her darkest lipstick is very useful for. 

“I’ll go to your hotel with you,” Taylor says, coming back out of the bathroom and trailing one hand along Harry’s back. “Or wherever you’re staying. On two conditions.”

“What are they?” Harry asks. He thumbs over his ring yet again. It’s really obnoxious, but it’s probably a tell. Taylor isn’t sure what - if anything - is inside of it, but she’ll have to be extra-wary around him. No eating or drinking anything he’s left alone with or anything he hands her. A thrill runs through her - she likes a challenge, and a spot of danger, and Harry may just prove to be both.

“One is that you don’t get my killed by running after Louis and Eleanor - if they actually exist,” Taylor says, and rolls her eyes to indicate that she’s doesn’t take that particular condition seriously. 

“Fine,” Harry says, laughing a little. His curls bounce against his shoulder. Taylor wonders whose hair is longer - probably his, if she’s honest. “And the other?”

Taylor grins, her sexiest, most seductive, most honest smile of them all. “The other is that I get to use my handcuffs on you.”

Harry looks startled for a second, and then gives her a slow, sexy grin to rival her own. “Deal,” he says.

They shake on it. His handshake is just as perfect as the first.

Definitely telling the truth about his work, then, and definitely a rival.

**Author's Note:**

> [original post](http://dulosis.tumblr.com/post/107086118381/would-it-be-like-taylor-gets-harry-as-an-assigned)


End file.
